Last week’s news of Jane Goldman’s Game of Thrones prequel pilot may not be the end of HBO’s spinoff plans. Of course, we’ve known for some time that HBO was considering five possible prequels to continue, and expand, the Game of Thrones universe—but we still have no idea just how many will pan out. Goldman’s show getting a pilot suggests four remain, and on his blog, A Song of Ice and Fire creator George R.R. Martin provided an update on the rest.

Martin said that one of the ideas has been rejected—but that the three that remain could still happen, even though Goldman’s is moving ahead first.

“Three more Game of Thrones prequels, set in different periods and featuring different characters and storylines, remain in active development,” the author wrote. “Everything I am told indicates that we could film at least one more pilot, and maybe more than one, in the years to come. We do have an entire world and tens of thousands of years of history to play with, after all. But this is television, so nothing is certain.”

Martin said he’s been consulting with most of the people involved with those shows and some have even come to visit him to discuss the ideas. However, he says he won’t be writing on any of them because he’s still working on the next book in the series, The Winds of Winter.

11 Comments to “George R.R. Martin Says Three Other Game of Thrones Prequels Are in ‘Active Development’”

Yup.
It’s television.
Just because a network orders up a pilot doesn’t mean they’ll order up a full season, much less seven years’ worth.

Every year, dozens of pilots get made that are never seen outside the studio HQ. And it’s not strictly a matter of show/concept quality, either. Often it’s a matter of pure whim or a coin flip.

This year we saw a perfect example: FOX paid all the development costs of the pilot for BLACK LIGHTNING and rejected it after seeing it for reasons still mysterious. (Presumanly it wasn’t a match for GOTHAM. Which is true. BLACK LIGHTNING is actually watchable. No wincing evinced.)

As it turns out, the producers turned around, showed it to the CW who promptly ordered up a short season. When the ratings and rave reviews came in (winning its slot not only against FOX but also ABC despite a much smaller network of affiliates) it got a second season order.

Martin might get lucky and get one of the four remaining options picked up or maybe even two. Or, the ATT purchase of Time Warner might go through and the new bosses might not be fans of high fantasy and prefer a show about a monkey.

Flip a coin: it’s Hollywood.
And Martin knows this better than most since he’s spent decades in that game.

A fourth is that he honestly just doesn’t give a crap. It has been seven years since he released a new book in the series, and nothing makes him lose his temper as fast as asking him how the next one is coming along.

A lot of people are following this; it’s not just my opinion. For previous books, he liked to release teasers and progress reports from time to time, and (if I recall correctly) the occasional apologetic blog post when he was blocked. Since the last book came out seven years ago – nothing. Nothing except snark and anger that his paying customers would dare to ask for the rest of the product that they were so eager to pay for.

After Robert Jordan died before finishing Wheel of Time I stopped buying books from series that were in progress. If it’s not finished, it’s not going on my shelf. I’ve heard so much good and bad from Game of Thrones, but until GRRM finishes the final book I’m never going to read (or watch) any of it.

While death can come to anyone, I’d be especially leery of such series when the author is old and out of shape. Death’s not the only reason a series doesn’t get finished, of course. I’ve started trilogies only to never get the last book because the publisher didn’t want to buy it and therefore the author didn’t want to write it. You’d think you wouldn’t have to worry about that with indies, but so many indies are of the mind that if the first book or two of a series doesn’t hit it out of the park, they’ll cut their losses (and leave their readers hanging) and switch to a different series. All of these things combine to make more and more readers wary of starting unfinished series–or at least ones where the individual books are not satisfying in their own right. I really enjoy the Dresden Files, for example, but while I’m looking forward to having it complete one day, even if we never get another book, I won’t regret having read them.

Martin said he’s been consulting with most of the people involved with those shows and some have even come to visit him to discuss the ideas. However, he says he won’t be writing on any of them because he’s still working on the next book in the series, The Winds of Winter.

I’m at the point (long past it, really) where I don’t care if he ever finishes the book, or any other. Blocked or whatever. Seven years. If it ever does come out, I’ll just look for a spoiler to see if Jon Snow is really dead. That’s all I care about after the slog through that last book anyway.

Could be worse. I’ve been halfheartedly waiting for the last “Night World” book from L.J. Smith for something in the region of 20 years. I was a kid when I started reading those. That book is supposedly also still being written.

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